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On Wednesday, October 16th, PhillyCORE Leaders continued their experiment in seed funding entrepreneurship in education with SEED 3.0, a competition among small education-focused nonprofits for microgrants.

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The 12+ team poses with Councilman Bill Green at City Council chambers.

On Wednesday, October 16th, PhillyCORE Leaders continued their experiment in seed funding entrepreneurship in education with SEED 3.0, a competition among small education-focused nonprofits for microgrants.

This is the third event of its kind since PhillyCORE Leaders, a coalition of engaged educators, was founded in 2011.

There were six finalists at the event, including three nonprofits and three teachers. This is the first year that individual teachers working on school-wide initiatives were eligible for the competition. About 120 people attended, with a brief visit from Superintendent William Hite.

During event, inside the City Council chambers, finalists pitched their ideas before a panel of judges with representatives from the School District, city government and other education nonprofits.

Though the final vote came from the audience, the judges grilled finalists about the value of their organizations or initiatives. Some of the questions were more open ended and intended to create a dialogue, such as, “what does good teaching look like?” and “what does success look like?”

The winning nonprofit, 12+, focuses on preparing students for secondary education through community and family outreach and school support.

The $5,000 grant it received will go towards the completion of its PLUS Center at Penn Treaty High School. The Center is hub for college-readiness resources within the partner school. Most of the grant will go toward outfitting the building with supplies like work-tables, bookshelves and computers.

The winning teacher, Trey Smith, will use his $2,500 grant to develop a math and engineering competition and collaborative network that brings students together with undergraduates from Drexel University to compete on math quiz bowels and design creative solutions to engineering problems.